Higher and higher! More kids than ever smoking cannabis since US started legalizing weed - and numbers are soaring

• Even in states where it is legal, marijuana is illegal for under-18s
• But cannabis use for 12-17-year-olds is higher than the national average
• That number is also rising faster than the national average, a report shows 

By Colin Fernandez for the Daily Mail

Legalizing marijuana in the United States has led to an upsurge in children smoking the drug, research has found.

It has also led to increases in traffic deaths from driving while high, and an increase in marijuana related poisonings and hospitalizations.

The report also claims drug legalization has increased criminal drug cartel activity – with gangsters starting production in states where the drug is legal.

A rise in cannabis use also led to higher rates of workplace absenteeism, the authors found.

The report, by a group of researchers at leading universities called SAM, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, is a review of the effects of four years of legalization in the US.

Marijuana use among children aged 12-17, for which it is still illegal, has 'been both above the national average and rising faster than the national average.'

They say a previous report that did not find this was flawed as it only included children attending school, and ignored school drop outs.

The report also found that the trend for young people to increasingly smoke the drug coincides with a fall in the rate of tobacco use among children in the same time frame.

The authors, who are opposed to legalisation, but do not want the drug 'demonised' are based at the University of Colorado at Denver, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard Medical School Children's Hospital, and Boston University of Kansas.

Colorado and Washington state voted to legalise the drug in 2012 and the drug was commercially available almost immediately.

The states allow stores to sell the drug and home cultivation for adults 21 or over, with growers allowed to give away up to six plants.

But the authors, whose stated aim is to stop marijuana growers becoming a powerful lobbying group akin to the tobacco industry, say that the legalisation has 'had significant negative impacts on public health and safety.'

They add that a 'brand-new marijuana industry selling candies, cookies, waxes, sodas, and other marijuana items has exploded – and with it a powerful lobby to fight any sensible regulation.'

Despite this they say that significant tax revenues have not flowed to the state government of Colorado – less than 1 per cent – and after the costs of enforcement, the remaining revenue is limited.

The authors also claim that legalisation has led to drug cartels setting up shop in Colorado – and using legal cannabis production to mask their illegal growing.

The report cites the mayor of Colorado Springs, John Suthers who said 'Mexican cartels are no longer sending marijuana into Colorado, they're now growing it in Colorado and sending it back to Mexico and every place else.'

Earlier this year, in the UK, drug law reformers led by Norman Lamb MP unsuccessfully attempted to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to legalise cannabis.

Mary Brett, anti-drug campaigner and chair of UK-based Cannabis Skunk Sense said: 'It's a huge warning. It was all so predictable. If you legalise it, people think it must be safe.

'The government would not do this if it was harmful, so usage goes up, and you have an increase in hospital admissions and accidents.

'This is what happens when you take the brakes off something. It's a told-you-so time really.'

But Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst at the UK-based Transform Drugs Policy Foundation responding to the report said it 'cherry picked' facts and was 'deliberately ignoring any positives'.

He said: 'Any objective review of Colorado shows that, aside from some minor teething problems, the predictions of the doom mongers simply haven't happened; The official schools survey reported no change in use.

'The data on cannabis impaired driving is too poor to draw conclusions from - but total road fatalities are down. And what SAM completely fail to mention is the 95 per cent drop in cannabis arrests, or the hundreds of millions in tax dollars raised - that is being invested in drug education and school building programs.

'At least 60 per cent of the Colorado market is now legal, taxed, and regulated. In the UK it is still 100 per cent criminals. 

'That's basically the choice we have; government or gangsters. There's no third option in which cannabis magically disappears. In the UK we are sticking with the gangster option - with all the harms it brings, and missing out on all the obvious benefits of legalisation we are now seeing from around the world.'